Liquid crystal display apparatuses are flat panel display apparatuses having superior characteristics of high accuracy, a thinness, a light weight, low power consumption, and the like and are widely used for a thin-type television set, a PC monitor, a digital signage, and the like.
Conventionally, a liquid crystal display apparatus of a twisted nematic (TN) mode that is generally used has superior productivity but has a problem in the viewing angle characteristic relating to screen display. For example, in a case where a display screen is seen in a direction inclining with respect to normal line, in a liquid crystal display apparatus of the TN mode, the contrast ratio is markedly lowered, and a luminance difference between gray scales becomes notably unclear. In addition, there are cases where a so-called a gray scale inversion phenomenon is observed in which a portion seen to be bright (or dark) when the display screen is seen on the front side is seen dark (or bright) when the display screen is seen in a direction inclining with respect to the normal line.
As liquid crystal display apparatuses improving the problem of the viewing angle characteristic described above, there are liquid crystal display apparatuses displaying in display modes such as an in-plane switching (IPS) mode and a vertical alignment (VA) mode. A technology for realizing a display mode in such liquid crystal display apparatuses is widely used as a technology for improving the viewing angle characteristic.
However, as one of problems of the viewing angle characteristic, there is a problem (hereinafter, referred to as viewing angle dependency of gamma characteristic) in that the gamma characteristic representing the dependency of display luminance on the gray scale depends on the angle of the sight line with respect to the normal line of the display screen. This problem is that the gray scale display state is different according to the observation direction for the display screen, and the gamma characteristic is observed to be different between a case where the observation direction is a direction along the normal line of the display screen and a case where the observation direction is a direction inclining with respect to the normal line.
For this, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-62146, a liquid crystal display apparatus improving the viewing angle dependency of gamma characteristic (in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-62146, called as a viewing-field angle dependency of gamma characteristic) is disclosed. In the liquid crystal display apparatus described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-62146, each pixel is configured by a plurality of sub-pixels, and an auxiliary capacitor (CS) is disposed in each sub-pixel. The auxiliary capacitor is formed by an auxiliary capacitor electrode electrically connected to the electrode of each sub-pixel, an insulating layer, and an auxiliary capacitor opposing electrode facing the auxiliary capacitor electrode through the insulating layer.
In the liquid crystal display apparatus described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-62146, for a plurality of sub pixels configuring each pixel, each auxiliary capacitor opposing electrode is electrically independent, and oscillation voltages (auxiliary capacitor opposing voltages) having different phases are applied to the auxiliary capacitor opposing electrodes.
In this way, by configuring the auxiliary capacitor opposing voltage to be different for each auxiliary capacitor opposing electrode, effective voltages applied to the liquid crystal layer of the plurality of sub pixels can be changed. In such a case, since each pixel is observed in a state in which a gamma characteristic different for each sub pixel is balanced, the viewing angle dependency of gamma characteristic is improved.